The Virginian

Sunday, March 31, 2013

The short version. Muslin converts to Christianity. Leaves Catholic Church because the Church was too ready to concede to Islam. Keep in mind that people who convert from Islam are under a sentence of death.

The highest-profile convert to Roman Catholicism in recent memory, Magdi Cristiano Allam, has left the Catholic Church.

Allam, who was baptized in the Vatican by Pope Benedict XVI on Easter day 2008, explained that what “more than any other factor drove me away from the Church” was the “legitimization of Islam as the true religion of Allah as the one true God, Muhammad as a true prophet, the Koran as a sacred text, and of mosques as places of worship.”

Allam declared that contrary to all that, he was “convinced” that Islam was an “inherently violent ideology,” and that he was “even more convinced that Europe will eventually submit to Islam.”

Perhaps he can find a home as a Southern Baptist. The Church that was founded by the Son of God will not be defeated by the sons of Satan. But that doesn't mean that it will not suffer or have to fight.

Self-Driving Cars

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” — Mark 16 1-7

Saturday, March 30, 2013

For example, think about all the hysteria the race industry is generating over having to produce a photo ID to vote. You know, every day of the week there are millions of blacks who have to show photo ID for all kinds of things. But to suddenly have to show photo ID for voting is going back to the days of Bull Connor. Bull Connor was not asking blacks to have photo IDs.

He calls election fraud a “phantom menace.” That's not a nice way to characterize an Ohio woman who proudly voted for Obama six times. He ascribes evil motives to Republicans for voter ID laws claiming that the poor, minorities and college students have trouble getting ID.

These groups vote more often for Democrats. Which is why GOP-controlled legislatures here and elsewhere have been so manic in ramming through the laws.

"Manic." "Ramming through." Roger's not happy that people like to feel that their vote is not being cancelled out by anyone, rich, poor, young or elderly who vote illegally.

The Dangers of Flexible Morality

Modern Family works well on TV, less so in the rusting double-wides of decrepit mill towns where, very quickly, the accumulated social capital of two centuries is drained, and too much is too wrecked. In Europe, where dependency, decadence, and demographic decline are extinguishing some of the oldest nations on earth, a successor population is already in place in the restive Muslim housing projects. With their vibrant multicultural attitudes to feminism and homosexuality, there might even be a great sitcom in it: Pre-Modern Family — and, ultimately, post-Modern.

Let me paraphrase. The reason that homosexual marriage is being legislated and court-ordered into existence is because a lot of young and even middle-aged Americans lack a vibrant belief system in anything other than that “values” are out of date. But, and this is a big but, other groups do not lack such moral … let’s call it “flexibility.” Muslims may not be the dominant ethnic group in the US as they have become in some major European cities, but they are growing. And there are large and growing sub-sets of America that have belief systems which, if you transgress, can get you killed. In those areas the flamboyant gays of Modern Family simply cannot exist.

It’s a truism that the weak are eventually conquered by the strong, and this applies to the moral as well as to the physical sphere. Defenders of marriage few and far between because the idea that marriage needed defense was once thought to be absurd.

Homosexuals may find that the castle they have captured has become a worthless shell. And then they may find that the culture they created is much deadlier than the one they left behind.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Will ObamaCare Lead to Lower Unemployment Numbers?

The assumption by everyone except committed ObamaBots is that ObamaCare will depress new hires as employers try to stay below the 50 employee limit that triggers their participation in this program. But in a perverse way it could have the opposite effect. It could actually increase hiring … of part time employees. This is not good for either employees or employers, but it could make the unemployment numbers look better as the unemployed become the partially-employed, and the full-timers become part-timers.

What started this train of thought was the picture of a woman with the word “Juicy” emblazoned on her derriere.

Juice Couture is known for its expensive denim and its velour track suits. Jeans retail for upwards of $178 and handbags around $230. And yet! Employees at the company’s flagship store on 5th Avenue in NYC allege that the company is systematically trying to bilk employees out of hours and benefits. A petition started by employee Duane and former employee Darrell claims that the company has reduced all but a few employees to part time work. Now, they say, most of the store’s 128 employees are limited to less than 21 hours a week. That’s so they don’t have to offer health insurance to their workers — under the Affordable Health Care Act, employees who work 30 hours or more are eligible to receive health care benefits. Further, in order to qualify for sick days, Juicy says you must work more than 1400 per year, which is impossible on a 21-hour per week schedule.

I suspect that Darrell and Duane undoubtedly voted enthusiastically for Obama, not understanding the collateral damage of Obama’s policies. In Rush Limbaugh's words they are "low information" voters who get their news from the Comedy Central. For some reason, this is not what they were told they were going to get on The Daily Show.

Though it won’t go into effect until January 2014, many companies are already slashing their full-time employees’ hours in order to get around the requirements. It’ll also increase the number of “temporary” workers, who work on contracts that must be periodically renewed. And thanks to the crappy economy, it’s easier than ever for companies to find workers that will take a job — any job — regardless of benefits or hours.

I, for one, can’t feel too bad for people who advertise their lubricity on their back-ends, or who vote for Obama. But it would be the height of irony if one of the big unintended side-effects of ObamaCare is an explosion of part-time workers.

Biden’s trip is the latest episode in a bout of rampant vacationing by the First and Second Families, who have been roaring out of Washington this year on taxpayer-funded excursions even as the deficit mounts and the sequester axes jobs and critical spending on other priorities.

While both President Obama and Biden pick up some of the tab for their recreational travel, the bulk of the costs – including flights aboard Air Force One and Air Force Two and security and staff needs – are billed to taxpayers.

Biden should feel especially refreshed when he returns given that he just had a vacation last month in Snowmass, Colorado, where he spent several days over President’s Day weekend. Close by in a neighboring section of Colorado’s ski country was First Lady Michelle Obama, who was taking her second vacation of the year in Aspen.

Over the same President’s Day weekend, President Obama was roving the fairways at an exclusive golf resort in Florida where he got pointers both from Tiger Woods and Tiger’s famous former coach. He and Mrs. Obama had already spent part of late December and early January in Hawaii.

Biden’s first trip this year was a sun worshiping exercise in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he stayed with his family from Friday, January 4 until Tuesday, January 8.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Do you know how hard it is to bankrupt America?

The Shrinking Jim Webb

What do you call a person who complains about a situation he helped perpetuate? I’m trying to come up with a label to apply to Jim Webb, former Senator, and occasional jerk. I recall the time he made a big show about lecturing George Bush about the Iraq war. Another time when he let one of his aides take the fall for carrying a gun in Washington DC. Unlike Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Jim Webb was never reluctant to show his wounds and rode his military decorations to public prominence and public office. There is rarely a time when he does not take the opportunity to refer to his military past. However, once home, he appears to have left his political courage on the battlefield, preferring to attack people who were in no position to fight back.

Now safely retired he has decided to blame an amorphous “Congress” for giving up its constitutional power to the President. Here’s his essay from the National Interest and a column by George Will.

However, unlike Rand Paul, Jim Webb never faced down the Senate or even members of his own party while he was there. Instead, he engaged in navel gazing and dealt with minutia while he held the position that he could have used to make a difference. Webb, the “military hero” was a faithful member of the Democrat troop that surrendered its constitutional powers to the President without as much as a whimper. Say what you will about Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist with no military medals, he has demonstrated that he is willing to stand on principle and is not interested in being a cog in a political machine. Less than a year after leaving office, it’s hard to recall what impact Webb had while in office; what legislation he sponsored or what causes he espoused. Meanwhile Paul, a freshman senator like Webb, has already made a name for himself and forced the Executive branch to acknowledge that there is, somewhere, a limit to its power.

Jim Webb was once decorated for a military action in which he played a major role. After that he appears to have found it much, much safer to snipe from the sidelines. It’s much safer to write an article for the National Interest than to do actual battle in the Senate.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Liberals had hoped, and some conservatives had feared, that the legislative Frankenstein’s monster known as Obamacare would become more popular as its sundry measures were implemented. But the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is no more popular now than when it was passed, as Americans have come to realize that it will neither protect patients nor provide for affordable care. While full repeal of the law is not within the realm of short-term political reality — the presence of Barack Obama in the White House and a Democratic majority in the Senate ensures that — repeal should nonetheless remain the end goal, either one piece at a time for now or root and branch.

The price tag for Obamacare has gone from shocking to preposterous. In March 2010, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the ten-year cost of the law at $898 billion; by February 2013, that number had climbed to $1.6 trillion, and it is likely that further revisions will be in the upward direction. That is a very high price to pay for a system that will, by the admission of its own supporters, leave some 30 million Americans uninsured. Long gone is the fiction pronounced by President Obama and repeated by his media enablers that the law will not add “one dime” to the deficit; the latest estimate is that Obamacare will add as much as $6.2 trillion to the long-term national debt, according to the Government Accountability Office. No thinking person takes President Obama seriously on fiscal questions, but those alleged experts and pundits who argued for Obamacare on fiscal grounds should be regarded as thoroughly discredited.

Read the whole thing.

Even the terminally stupid people who produce the Virignian Pilot are starting to get a clue. Today's issue has a front page story on the increased cost of health insurance that directly assigns blame to ObamaCare.

What's bizarre about this story, which is actually an AP story, is not so much that it was actually printed in the Virginian Pilot, a pioneer in cheerleading for all things Obama, but that the writer says:

It could increase premiums for at least some Americans.

If you are uninsured, or you buy your policy directly from an insurance company, you should pay attention.

But if you have an employer plan, like most workers and their families, odds are you don't have much to worry about.

People who don't know any better believe that Warren Buffett is just a smart stock picker. Nothing could be further from the truth. He's very good at making deals that would make a loan shark blush if the loan shark was worth $50 billion.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) is poised to become one of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)’s largest shareholders without paying anything after the companies agreed on a plan to settle warrants granted at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns member and Democratic Gainesville, Fla., Mayor Craig Lowe was arrested on charges of driving under the influence and property damage after police found him asleep in his car at the scene of a crash last Thursday.

You will never find Bloomberg in that situation. People worth $5 billion don't drive themselves. The have chauffeurs for that, and armed guards, and their own private jets. The would not be caught dead in a Honda Civic.

To vacation a lot, just get elected President of the United states.

In the first three months of the year, members of the first family have been on three vacations, averaging a vacation a month. And now it's being reported that the first daughters are on a spring break vacation in the Bahamas....

The Obamas began the new year in Hawaii. "President Obama departed Hawaii this morning for Washington, after spending NINE days vacationing with family and friends in his native state....

Then the first lady and their daughters vacationed in Aspen over President's Day weekend.... While the rest of the family was in Colorado, Obama went to Florida for a golf weekend....

And now it's being reported that the first daughters are on Spring Break in the Bahamas.... Of course, there's no reason to begrudge the first family for enjoying a good vacation. But at a time when the White House is closed to the public, it all might seem a little odd.

As spring break begins for schoolchildren across the country, thousands of students will travel to Washington, DC. The trips, funded by bake sales and other events throughout the year, will allow the students to take in Washington's historic landmarks.

One premier destination is off-limits this year, however. A few weeks ago, the Obama Administration announced it was suspending public, self-guided tours of the White House as a result of the automatic sequester cuts that the administration proposed in 2011. While America's students stand outside the White House fence, the First Daughters, Sasha and Malia, are enjoying spring break with friends at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.

The royal couple and the princesses can't stay cooped up in the White House all the time, can they? The peasants? Let them eat cake!

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

BEGIN TRANSCRIPTRUSH: Here's Art in Windsor, Connecticut, as we go back to the phones. Hello, sir.CALLER: Rush, how you doing?RUSH: I'm fine, sir. Thank you.CALLER: Look, I just think, you know, there used to be laws that said black people can't marry white people. I don't think this is any different. I mean, if you're gay and you want to marry somebody who's gay, marry somebody who's gay. That's your business. What is the business of the state government or the federal government telling me who I can and can't marry?RUSH: You are serious with this? You want to equate interracial marriage to homosexual marriage?CALLER: Yeah, I think that a person should be able to make their own personal decision. I think actually this should be something the Republican Party should be in support of. It's individual rights, you can marry whoever you want.RUSH: You don't have to worry, the Republican Party's moving in that direction, it is.CALLER: Yep.RUSH: Well, let me ask you this. Where does this freedom to do what you want stuff stop? And what, in your case, what would two people wanting to do raise a red flag for you? What would you say, "Now, wait a minute, no, no, no, you shouldn't do that?"CALLER: Well, I think if you were talking about like a three-party marriage, an eight-party marriage --RUSH: Why? If you love one, you can love two. What if all three people love each other and they want the benefits and all that, who among us should deny those three people their love?CALLER: I think they can be loved, I just don't think you need to give it a legal status because --RUSH: Why not?CALLER: Because two people would make a family, they could raise kids, adopt kids, do whatever they want, I don't think --RUSH: Wait a minute. But why can't three people do that? In fact, if you have two of the same sex and one of the opposite sex, you've handled the adoption issue. You don't need to adopt. You can have one woman and two guys in a marriage, and the woman could be impregnated by the two, and, voila, you got a family.CALLER: I don't see that. RUSH: You got a lot of love and what could possibly be wrong with that?CALLER: I think society's determined that two spouses, two people --RUSH: Well, wait, society's determined, you know, by the way, human civilization, from the beginning of time, has determined that marriage is a union of a man and a woman. The Republicans didn't do it.CALLER: Right.RUSH: Conservatives didn't do it.CALLER: Right.RUSH: Churchill didn't do it. Margaret Thatcher didn't do it. Gorbachev didn't do. It was humanity which did it. You just said society has determined that -- well, society has determined that marriage is between a man and a woman, but I don't think society's right in that case. CALLER: No, no. I don't agree with you. I think society has evolved away from that. I think the people in general think that you want if you want to marry somebody you should be able to marry them.RUSH: Well, someday society is gonna evolve away from marriage by two people and could be three or four, and you're gonna oppose that then for some reason. You're gonna deny those people their love.CALLER: Yeah, I would. I would oppose that.RUSH: Why? I don't understand. Why would you discriminate that way? What does the number matter when we're talking about love here?CALLER: 'Cause I think that in general, two people are necessary to raise a family unit. You need two parents.RUSH: Well, why? Because every family's got grandparents and aunts and uncles. It's always more than just two people raising the child. It's a village doing it sometimes in the Clintons' case.CALLER: Not in my family. I never had the village come to my house and raise my family. I think it generally takes two people. I'm not homosexual. I became a Republican after Lieberman got thrown out of the Democratic Party --RUSH: Right.CALLER: -- because I said if the party doesn't have enough room for Joe Lieberman, it doesn't have enough room for me. But I think that once that decision has been made, that in our society, financially and economically, you need who people to raise --RUSH: Well, let me play devil's advocate with you because in the case of homosexual marriage, without additional steps, those two people can't produce a family.CALLER: Right, they can't. They'd have to adopt. But then you'd have to --RUSH: Well, adopt or have a surrogate, artificial womb somewhere.CALLER: Yes. Or you'd have to say I've got, you know --RUSH: Do you think maybe society -- (crosstalk)CALLER: -- sterile woman --RUSH: Do you think marriage evolved in society precisely because it takes one of each sex to make another human being?CALLER: It used to.RUSH: Let me ask you this. Do you believe or not believe, do you think it matters or not that a child grow up with two parents or one?CALLER: I think in an ideal world it's better to have a male and female parent, but I think that the world is never ideal and I think having two parents of the same sex is better than having one parent who is not the same sex.RUSH: Why do you think that?CALLER: I think two-parents are better than one parent. I think two parents help to raise a family properly, and I think it really helps if you have a two-parent family.RUSH: But why? What do two accomplish that one can't?CALLER: Well, they produce more income. They have more time to divide among their kids. If one parent needs to take the kids to school and the other one needs to go to work, they can do that, I mean they can divide the -- it's a more resource available situation.RUSH: But with feminism you don't have anybody at home anymore. Both husband and wife go off to work and they either got day care or a nanny or somebody else not in the family raising the kid.CALLER: I think that was a temporary thing. I think that's kind of shifting back the other way now, as you were talking about just a few days ago, I think, weren't you?RUSH: Well, the phenomenon, yes, of feminist women deciding after birth that, "You know what? I think I want to stay home with the child." Yes, that is happening.CALLER: Right.RUSH: It has been happening for awhile. So we could say that you hate single mothers. You hate single parents.CALLER: No, I don't think you could say that. I just think it's not the ideal situation.RUSH: Well, no, but that's what's gonna happen to you. I just want to warn you, you're gonna become a hater and a bigot. This is how the people, if there's a movement out there for single parent families and it's perfectly fine, it's nobody's business, but you, Art, come along say, "No, there have to be two parents, even if the same sex," you are gonna become a hater if you oppose the single parent family movement, should there ever be one, you will be called a hater and a bigot. I'm just trying to prepare you for it.CALLER: Well, thanks, Rush. I appreciate the update there.RUSH: Okay, so our caller here hates single mothers. That's what we've learned today from Art --CALLER: All right, thank you.RUSH: -- at the end of the call. Art, I appreciate your call. I really do. I hope you have a wonderful day out there. BREAK TRANSCRIPTRUSH: There is a movement in this country that you don't hear much about called polyamory. Our caller Art said, "Oh, no, no, no. No, no, no. That's where I draw the line." You can't have more than two people get married.Well, there's a movement for that, and the proponents are being urged to shut up about it and just do it. BREAK TRANSCRIPTRUSH: Now, we had a guy on the phone here a moment ago named Art who steadfastly maintained that he does have limits on this stuff. He thinks it's fine if two men want to get married and if two women want to get married. That's cool. None of our business. They love each other, that's great. And two parents, even the same sex, better than a single parent. So Art clearly hates single parents, as things work out in America today. But I said, "Well, okay, Art, at what point will these kind of arrangements become something you can't agree with?" He said, "Well, three people, if three people want to get married, I'm gonna draw the line." "Why?" "Well, it's just too many." "Well, why? I mean, the more love, the better. Two people in love, three people in love. Two people of one sex, one of the opposite sex, I mean you got constant sex that way and you've got constant babies being born, and, oh, you don't need adoption." That did it. He couldn't go for that. I kept probing. Why not? What's wrong with three? Why not four? It's just like the minimum wage argument. You can eventually reach an amount that even proponents say is too much. And here with the gay marriage argument, you can construct a definition of marriage that even proponents of same-sex marriage will say, "No, no, no, no, that's going too far." But, see, once you cancel the definition of marriage, then it can become anything. And that's another thing that Roberts is saying. Once you take something that has a specific definition, and you obliterate that, then it can become anything you want and there's no limit to it. So there's a church out there, folks, called the Unitarian church. Many of you have heard of it. You just don't want people to know that you know. There's a joke about Unitarians. The joke is -- and this is the Washington Post saying this. This is not an El Rushbo joke, just so you know. It's right here in the Washington Post. "The joke about Unitarians is that they’re where you go when you don’t know where to go. Theirs is the religion of last resort for the intermarried, the ambivalent, the folks who want a faith community without too many rules. It is perhaps no surprise that the Unitarian Universalist Association is one of the fastest-growing denominations in the country, ballooning 15 percent over the past decade."But within the ranks of the UUA over the past few years, there has been some quiet unrest concerning a small but activist group that vociferously supports polyamory. That is to say 'the practice of loving and relating intimately to more than one other person at a time.'" Now, you people in Rio Linda know all about this. But for the rest of you, polyamory is loving and relating to three people in a relationship, four people in a relationship at the same time. And the Unitarians have "a mission statement by Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness (UUPA)." That's the acronym, UUPA. He-he. It is. "The UUPA 'encourages spiritual wholeness regarding polyamory.'" Now, here's the problem. What's the limit? Where do you draw the line on polyamory? Two women and one man? One women and six men? Three women and two men? Twelve people? Where do you draw the line? The line has not been drawn. The polyamorists don't want any such lines. They don't want any limits whatsoever. A great example of this would be the famous rapper Shawty Lo. Remember him? He was gonna have that great TV show, the rapper in Atlanta. The Oxygen network canceled it. Boy, this guy was ahead of his time. This guy had 11 kids with ten baby mamas. They canceled this show because it was upsetting. But this guy fits right in now. That show could be exactly what's called for, especially to humiliate Roberts. You know, you could put that show on a DVD and drop it off at Roberts' office and say, "Here, these are my friends." So it is happening out there within the Unitarian church. But the headline of this story is: "Many Unitarians Would Prefer That Their Polyamory Activists Keep Quiet." In other words, don't talk about it, don't call attention to what we're doing here, just do it. If you have a spiritual wholeness and an intimate relationship with three people, do it, but don't tell anybody. Don't run around and brag about it when you go to the IHOP, you know, just do it. And this church is growing.BREAK TRANSCRIPTRUSH: Here is Paul in Ottawa, Canada. Hi, Paul. I'm glad that you called and got through. Welcome.CALLER: Hi there. Great White North mega dittos.RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.CALLER: Okay. You're absolutely right in what you say about, if same-sex marriage is made a civil right, then it's gonna brand everybody who's opposed to it as a bigot. That's pretty much what's happened up here, and it hits hardest on teenagers, I think, really, 'cause the peer pressure they face from other teenagers or from the educational system is really intense. You know, at times it drives a real wedge between parents and children.RUSH: That is exactly the ploy being used here.CALLER: Yup.RUSH: This is the #1 issue among people under 30 in this country, even conservative young people under 30, and it is this technique that has secured it. I think you're right.CALLER: It often drives a real wedge between both kids and their church as well if they're active in a church. It really goes beyond just branding individuals as bigots, though. If you say that same-sex marriage is a human right or a civil right or something along those lines, then every single church that stands for traditional marriage suddenly becomes like the KKK. That's a very dangerous situation to be in.RUSH: Because they're opposed to "civil rights." The KKK was opposed to civil rights, and gay marriage is a civil right. So if you're opposed to it, you're no different than the Klan.CALLER: Yeah. So how can the government justify giving you a break on property taxes or counting you as a charity if you're an organization opposed to a civil right.RUSH: Exactly.CALLER: In fact, there's actually a legal precedent.RUSH: Right!CALLER: That would give the government a lot of power to impose very harsh penalties on churches under that circumstance. If you go back to the late 1800s where there was this big fight between Mormons -- who were practicing polygamy, that definition of marriage -- and the federal government that had a monogamous definition of marriage, was a bill passed called the Edmunds-Tucker Act. That law wound up stripping anyone who didn't accept, like swear an oath to accept the state's definition of marriage, of rights.If you didn't do that, you did not have the right to vote. You did not have the right to serve in a public office. You did not have the right to serve as a juror. Wives could be compelled to testify against their husbands or be sent to jail if they didn't. The Mormon Church itself was dis-incorporated and its assets were seized. And, you know, this sets a legal precedent that could be turned around at Catholics, Baptists, Mormons again, and every other church that holds to traditional marriage if you go and say that same-sex marriage is a right.RUSH: Right. You know, it's not just that. It also works on the Manhattan, under-30, bar scene conservatives. Nobody wants to be called a bigot. Nobody wants to be thought of as discriminating against "love," which is apparently a commodity in short supply.CALLER: Yes.RUSH: Because whenever people find it, we're supposed to stop everything and celebrate it. It's so hard to find it out there now that when it is discovered, we gotta stop and celebrate it and proclaim support for it no matter what. Let me ask you this philosophically: Could we get to the point where we would say opposite-sex couples are bigoted because they're not marrying people of the same sex?CALLER: (pause) Possibly. You know, give it time. I think anything's possible.RUSH: (laughing)CALLER: I think the real issue here isn't, you know, is same-sex marriage a right or not but who gets to decide what's a human right or not. That really is fundamental to what kind of government you have. You know, if you have a monarchy, the king has the ultimate power. If it's a theocracy, then some church or religious body has the ultimate power. Who has the ultimate power in the United States to decide what's a human right and what isn't? Is it some oligarchy of judges or politicians, or is it the people?RUSH: It's a combination of both, but it's an oligarchy of judges that are deciding everything in this country. But you raise a good point: How long will it be before churches lose their tax deductions if they don't perform same-sex marriages? I'm not joking. People who engage in opposite-sex marriage, are they going to someday be bigots for not marrying somebody of the same sex? Which is the popular and hip thing to be doing. (interruption) Now, Snerdley, you're smirking at me, but I'm just taking this...See, I love logic and I love context. I love to take things and ask, "Okay, do something today. Where will it lead down the road?" Which hardly anybody thinks about. (interruption) Why do we think it's popular? (interruption) What, same-sex marriage? (interruption) Well, Snerdley is telling me that everybody he knows is sick and tired of hearing about it and they just want it to go away. I will have to concur. A lot of my friends have a different reason they want it to go away.They don't care.They are so worried about what's happening to the economy, they are so worried about what their kids' futures economically are not gonna be, that they don't care about this. They think, "Just to hell with it! Why are we wasting time on something like this that doesn't matter?" That also is being taken advantage of in pushing the effort. But, you see, the reason why it all matters and the reason why it's all linked... (big sigh) Boy, am I gonna get in trouble in this. It's just whole concept of morality.There's gotta be a moral foundation to every aspect of life in a free society or it's gonna vanish. We were talking earlier about this. When freedom is defined as anything you want to do with no moral underpinning, with no virtue attached, freedom without virtue is not really freedom. And I forget, Oz somebody, his book, I quoted from. I forget his last name, but he said this is the root to the decline of free societies is this open-ended definition of freedom to which no virtue is attached. "Hello, Rome," for example, is his point. END TRANSCRIPT

As I hinted in my previous post, when the Left has no one else to destroy, they begin destroying each other. That’s because when there are limited resources (and there always are) the people who are ruthless enough will destroy those who are in their way. It’s the law of the jungle. In this case, the paranoia that is always part of the Left media has to turn against someone or something. People like Lauer know the tools they have used to destroy the reputation of Conservatives. He just never expected their “allies” to use them against him.

Alameda County supervisors have really taken to heart the adage that government should run like a business — rewarding County Administrator Susan Muranishi with the Wall Street-like wage of $423,664 a year.

For the rest of her life.

According to county pay records, in addition to her $301,000 base salary, Muranishi receives:

– $24,000, plus change, in “equity pay’’ to guarantee that she makes at least 10 percent more than anyone else in the county.

– About $54,000 a year in “longevity” pay for having stayed with the county for more than 30 years.

– An annual performance bonus of $24,000.

– And another $9,000 a year for serving on the county’s three-member Surplus Property Authority, an ad hoc committee of the Board of Supervisors that oversees the sale of excess land.

Like other county executives, Muranishi also gets an $8,292-a-year car allowance.

Muranishi has been with the county for 38 years, and she’s 63. When retirement day comes, she’ll be getting a lot more than a gold watch.

That’s because, according to the county auditor’s office, Muranishi’s annual pension will be equal to the dollar total of her entire yearly package — $413,000. She also has a separate executive private pension plan, for which the county chips in $46,500 a year.

It's only money. More to the point, it's only Taxpayers money. Now it all belongs to her. Think she's the only one? Think again:
Calpers (that's the California Public Employees Pension Fund) now pays:

One thing we have to remined the American people is that when the members of the Presidents family travel, they don't travel alone. If costs a lot when the go anywhere.

On Monday, Breitbart's Matthew Boyle broke the story that First Daughters Sasha and Malia Obama are spending their spring break at a resort in the Bahamas. Breitbart's Mike Flynn followed up with an analysis showing how this reflected President Obama's budget priorities. There is enough money in President Obama's post sequester FY 2013 federal budget to provide Secret Service protection for his daughters vacationing outside the country, Flynn noted, but not enough to keep the White House open for tours for the children of average American taxpayers.

Throughout the 2008 and 2012 campaigns, President Obama promised to transform America into something better, a land filled with hope and change. It appears, however, that the man who vacations in Martha's Vineyard, golfs with Tiger Woods, and sends the Secret Service to accompany his wife and daughters on international vacations to Spain, Mexico, and now the Bahamas has another agenda in mind. He seeks to transform constitutional presidential authority into royal prerogative. Judging by the failure of any media source other than Breitbart, Drudge, and Instapundit to cover this story, it is also quite clear that the mainstream media has decided to play the role of dutiful courtiers to this expansion of presidential powers.

After two items last week on the cost of lodging for Vice President Joe Biden's early February trip to Europe, other news organizations began to investigate further. Wolf Blitzer's show The Situation Room on CNN uncovered a contract apparently also related to the same visit to Paris:

Also on the receipt was $321,665 for a limousine company.

The CNN report went on to explain that the limousine costs did not seem out of the ordinary:

When Roth made the claim that bans on various unhealthy activities are warranted because “we pick up the tab” for other’s bad habits, Coulter countered that “I think you’re going to have to do something about the gay bathhouses.”

“AIDS is very expensive, and if I’m paying for it, how about discouraging that behavior?” she explained.

Ten years ago, along with three-quarters of the American people, including the men just appointed as President Obama’s secretaries of state and defense, I supported the invasion of Iraq. A decade on, unlike most of the American people, including John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, I’ll stand by that original judgment.

None of us can say what would have happened had Saddam Hussein remained in power. He might now be engaged in a nuclear-arms race with Iran. One or other of his even more psychotic sons, the late Uday or Qusay, could be in power. The Arab Spring might have come to Iraq, and surely even more bloodily than in Syria.

At the beginning of the war I believed that we were committed to changing the area profoundly. What happened? We won in Iraq but the Left in this country, the drumbeat of defeat and lies, resistance by the powerful forces of Liberalism combined to take the victory and make it hollow. It made it impossible to follow-through and so we find ourselves today with a Middle East that is on the cusp of becoming an resurgent Islamic Caliphate. All because the Left in the US hated George Bush more than Satan. And did not believe that winning the peace was better than the destruction of Bush.

And so a genuinely reformed Middle East remains, like the speculative scenarios outlined at the top, in the realm of “alternative history.” Nevertheless, in the grim two-thirds-of-a-century roll call of America’s un-won wars, Iraq today is less un-won than Korea, Vietnam, or Afghanistan, and that is not nothing. The war dead of America and its few real allies died in an honorable cause. But armies don’t wage wars, nations do. And, back on the home front, a vast percentage of fair-weather hawks who decided that it was all too complicated, or a bit of a downer, or Bush lied, or where’s the remote, revealed America as profoundly unserious.

God the almighty Patsy, version 999

I rarely read the “news” section of the Virginian Pilot. That’s not what newspapers are for any more, specially this Liberal fish wrap. I read the editorial pages to find out what new idiocy the people who produce this daily contribution to physical and mental pollution are thinking. It’s also fun to read the letters they print.

Today we are treated to another in the series of “God the almighty Patsy” letters. In it the writer inveighs against people who oppose the latest Liberal fads: abortion, divorce, and homosexuality in all it physical and legal manifestations prominent among them. It ends by denouncing people who do not believe that an “all-loving God” would have a problem with any of this.

I have a sneaking suspicion … no, I total conviction … that people who invoke an “all-loving God” to justify whatever they favor don’t really believe in God, “all-loving” or otherwise. It’s just a handy tool they use whenever they run into someone who is informed by his religious faith to define what was once called sin, but is now labeled and alternative lifestyle.

Because, you see an “all-loving God” loves everyone and everything unconditionally. Kill 6 million Jews? Welcome to paradise Adolf. Kill 50 million Chinese in a Great Leap Forward? Hello Mao, here’s your golden harp. Starve millions, shoot millions more and send millions more to death in the Gulag? Saint Peter greets Stalin at the Pearly Gates knowing he simply tried to create a New Soviet Man.

Of course this reductio ad absurdum really doesn’t occur to the letter writer, the editors who print this piffle or people who nod their heads and agree. But let’s be clear. Christians believe that God is foremost just. That is the essence of Christianity because it validates Christ’s death on the cross, so that those who believe in the Son of God may be cleansed of their sins and forgiven. The writer’s “all-loving” God is an artifact, a figment of an atheist’s misunderstanding of what Christians believe. Which explains why letters like this appear so frequently in the Virginian Pilot.

Senators nibbled away what they considered the worst parts of the sequester, but they declined to undo President Obama’s decision to cancel White House tours — a move he made earlier this month as one of the casualties of the budget sequesters, ...

Republican Teddy Turner, the son of media mogul Ted Turner, made news last month when he blamed his father's liberalism on actress Jane Fonda.

He made more news Wednesday on NewsMax TV's Steve Malzberg Show saying that CNN is "pretty much to the left" and that he has such a "hard time watching them" he mostly watches Fox (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary ...

I just saw pigs flying! Andrea Mitchell actually placed the blame for the relationship on Obama.

So nobody, none of the independent critics would say that the White House has not bungled this relationship, but a lot of people put blame on the Israeli side as well. It's gotten off on the wrong foot and they’re trying to fix it, but it is one of the worst relationships I can remember, and I’ve covered every president going all the way back to Ronald Reagan. These, these leaders do not get along. They are not simpatico.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Nothing says free speech like pulling the fire alarm. It was a quarter past seven last night when police emptied U of T’s George Ignatieff Theatre. Keynote speaker Dr. Janice Fiamengo, an English professor at the University of Ottawa, rolled her eyes and adjusted her blouse as the crowd poured out of the building and onto the sidewalk to mingle with the small throng of protesters—pretty girls with big placards and little patience. They wanted Dr. Fiamengo to take her message elsewhere. But firemen came and went, and the professor, once a radical feminist, proceeded to do what the University of Toronto Men’s Issues Awareness Society, and the Canadian Association for Equality invited her to do: denounce women’s studies.

Rule Of Law: Markets tumbled after Cyprus and the EU said they might tax private bank accounts to pay for a bailout. Arbitrary property grabs are a new low and a bad precedent in this crisis. Worse still, it can happen here.

As bad as tumbling markets around the world are, they seem to be the only signal strong enough to catch the attention of Europe's otherwise unaccountable bureaucrats who have long since learned to ignore street riots.

As stocks fell from Tokyo to New York, Europe's leaders are scrambling to say they had nothing to do with the cause — the shutdown of all Cyprus banks and ATMs for at least three days and the expropriation of a large chunk of each now-captive account, as a "tax" to pay for Cyprus' $13 billion EU bailout, Europe's fifth.

It appears that Cypriot banks made very bad investment decisions costing them billions. Without a bailout they will go bankrupt. So the EU demands that the Cypriot government confiscate a large part of every saver's account in return for enough money to bail out the banks.

Which teaches everyone a valuable lesson. The government can do anything to you if you can't defend yourself. Banks accounts are not safe from government confiscation. Neither are any other accounts held by any other financial institution and not held by you personally.

Suddenly the Second Amendment and stuff under your mattress become increasingly important.

Already Congressional Democrats are plotting the expropriation of Americans' private 401(k) and IRA retirement savings accounts in favor of "a guaranteed income." If bank accounts can be casually expropriated in Cyprus to pay for big-spending governments and bailouts, there is no reason a nice slice of the $19 trillion in retirement accounts can't get the same treatment.

If it happens, it will signal the end of individual freedom and the return of feudalism.

Frederick Hayek had a phrase for this: "The Road To Serfdom." Let's hope there will be more than just markets to make this state theft of private property stop.

Monday, March 18, 2013

John Hinderaker at Powerline discussed the latest attempt to resurrect Michael Mann's "hockey stick" with what appears to be fraulent data.

He asks:

One more thought: the publicly available evidence suggests that alarmist scientists have repeatedly committed fraud in research conducted and papers published that were paid for by United States taxpayers. It seems inconceivable that felonies have not been committed in connection with those frauds. Are there not criminal statutes that prohibit the publication of fraudulent data in taxpayer-supported research? Eric Holder, obviously, will not pursue any such line of inquiry, but there must be state law enforcement authorities who could look into this question. Fraudsters like Bernie Madoff, for instance, have tried to hide the decline in the value of funds invested with them. But that is nothing compared to the fraud that the global warming alarmists have perpetrated.

Actually John, one tried. Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli tried to open an investigation into the research conducted by Michael Mann while he was at the University of Virginia. His efforts were roundly denounced by the media, he was pilloried as an anti-science zealot opposed to academic freedom, stonewalled by the UVA administration and his investigation was stopped by the state Supreme Court. I suspect than anyone who attempts to do what you suggest would get the same treatment.

Here's another interesting fact from John's article.

We are reminded of the NOAA/NCDC weather data on the U.S., which are routinely relied on by alarmists who claim that the last few years have been the warmest ever. In order to justify this assertion, NOAA has gone back and revised the data for prior decades. Instead of reporting temperatures for prior decades, like the 1930s, as it did at the time and for many years thereafter, NOAA has now changed those temperatures downward to support the politically-motivated claim that the last years of the 20th century were the warmest ever. If you look at NOAA data today for the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, etc., you will have no idea that the numbers NOAA now reports are not the ones that were measured by thermometers at the time.

In America, we've prided ourselves on abandoning those privileges of class some 237 years ago, following that little uprising in the 13 colonies.

And we again congratulated ourselves at 12:01 pm Eastern Time on January 20, 2009, just moments after Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States and as he committed to making his administration the most transparent and open in history.

But more than four years later it is time to ask questions. The most transparent administration ever? The most transparently political, yes. The most open government? If you have the money to buy access, yes.

Since last weekend, Mr and Mrs Regular Citizen have been denied the access people used to be granted to tour the White House, purportedly because of the clampdown on federal spending since the "sequester" that imposed cuts across the board.

These tours, most recently guided by volunteers though monitored by paid Secret Service staff, have been an American tradition since John and Abigail Adams, the first White House residents, personally hosted receptions for the public.

And their cancellation is an austerity measure that saves a pittance, while more frivolous taxpayer funding for items like the White House dog walker continues.

Meanwhile, noble Americans can buy time with the president for a suggested donation of $500,000 to his new campaign group, Organising for Action.

Yes, the announcement offering access to the president for cold, hard cash was made openly and with total transparency. But it was also made without shame.

It's the third version of Obama's original monster campaign machine, Obama for America, which then morphed into a re-election campaign machine, Organising for America, on the third day of his first term.

It has now re-launched again as Organising for Action (OFA) - a non-profit, tax-exempt group headed by his former campaign advisers. Apparently no longer "for America", the group might just as well be called Organising for Obama's Agenda.

Its mission: to support the president in his attempt to achieve enactment of gun control, environmental policies and immigration reform.

At the two-day kick-off event last week for the new OFA's founding summit, attended by 75 folks for the "bargain" rate of just $50,000, Obama at least acknowledged the concerns raised by others about the funding, purpose and influence of the organisation.

However, he brushed them aside. With greater humility than new Pope Francis, Obama said he prided himself on feeling no obligation in the past to the interests of the generous donors who made his election and re-election possible. Though paradoxically he also said he wanted "to make sure the voices of the people are actually heard in the debates that are going to be taking place". So, he'll take money to listen to the voices of the privileged, but not do their bidding?

May I humbly suggest he could hear more voices, more clearly if he mingled with the public he serves? Perhaps the White House could hold open tours for the public! Why has no one in his administration thought of that? And volunteers could manage those tours, to keep costs down!

But, of course, those are what have just been cancelled. Meanwhile, three calligraphers reportedly remain on staff. I suppose their services are needed for the special hand-lettered, gold-foiled invitations sent to the nobles who are willing to pay for an audience with the King.

As someone once said: "it's good to be the king." Do I need to add that the outrage remains limited to the conservative blogosphere. The ObamaBots in MSM are predictably silent.

Let's admit it, Conservatives are happy to have a prominent, articulate black man who shares their values. Do I need to add "courageous" to that list? Because incredible pressure is exerted on you if you have back skin to toe the Liberal line.

Deen Feeelon is one of academia's Liberal enforcers, one of a multitude who punish you if you stray.

Besides being stupid and offensive, people like this are so drearily predictable. What a surprise it would be if they paid due respect to Dr. Carson and offered stimulating moral or intellectual disagreement with what he said. But no, it's just the usual stern order to return to the liberal plantation immediately, or Carson's racial identity will be revoked.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

What are white people allowed to say and think about race? The answer may surprise you.

I’ve begun to think that most white people stopped looking around at large segments of our city, at our poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods, a long time ago. One of the reasons, plainly put, is queasiness over race. Many of those neighborhoods are predominantly African-American. And if you’re white, you don’t merely avoid them—you do your best to erase them from your thoughts.

Rush Limbaugh's "Friend"

Rush Limbaugh recently recounted a conversation he had with a friend who is afraid for the future of America. Specifically this friend was afraid for the future of his children; that they would not have the opportunities that he had. The answer, The Friend concluded was to focus totally on the economy and forget about the social issues.

I can see why this could be the case. Haven’t we been told relentlessly that the social issues are poison to the Republican Party? That women support abortion, that religious faith is off-putting, that supporters of traditional marriage are just like racists. So strip the pro-life plank, the reference to God and support for male-female marriage from the political platform and focus on … what? Tax rates? Employment? The national debt?

How’s that working out for President Romney?

I wanted to call in to Rush’s show and tell him that The Friend could not be more wrong. Great movements and political coalitions have always been about moral issues. Even the counting-house issues that concern The Friend are, at the root, moral issues.

Debt may be expressed in dollar terms but sliding deeper and deeper into debt without concern is a moral issue. The Left doesn’t believe that the national debt is a bad thing, the Right does for both moral and prudential reasons.

The subject of taxes is always framed by the Left as a moral issue; a path to “fairness.” The actual level of taxation is never discussed and most people underestimate how much of their income the so-called “rich” are actually giving up. Polls show that The Right makes the big mistake of making the case that higher taxes inhibit growth and employment. This may be true, but it’s irrelevant when the case is being made, and won, as a moral issue.

If economic issues were the deciding factor in elections, Romney would be President today. Obama managed to transform one of the most decent and capable men ever to run for public office into a moral reprobate who hated dogs, killed a man’s wife with cancer, hid his ill-gotten gains in the Cayman Islands, failed to pay his income taxes and hated poor people. The election was won and lost on the issue of morality. Don't misunderstand, Obama is a profoundly immoral man who ran an ugly, base and immoral campaign, but he won by slandering the morality of Mitt Romney; the economy was a distant second.

All of the major issues of our time, indeed of most times, are fundamentally, moral. A virtuous nation, one that honors it mothers and fathers; honors work instead of sloth; honors law-keeping over law-breaking; trusts its citizens with weapons because it treats its citizens fairly and in which it’s citizens don’t casually kill each other; maintains traditional moral codes on the sanctity of life, of marriage, of sexual morality is one in which The Friend can be certain his children and grandchildren will have the opportunity that he had.

Economic opportunities are not irrevocably linked to a free society. History provides countless examples of people who amass great wealth in tyrannies and in immoral ways. An immoral nation can provide wealth to those who are favored by the ruling class. Just recently we have the example of Al Gore's wealth based on the Global Warming scam. We need go no further back than current events and the millionaires and billionaire enriched by Obama's green energy "loans" to his political supporters. But in corrupt cultures only the corrupt thrive. Perhaps that's the problem that The Friend should focus on.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

“I’ll fight it for Mr. Obama and Mr. Obama’s right to sit as president of the United States,”

These things only happen in Cincinnati, right? The Virginian Pilot is absolutely sure it's never happened in Virginia, or if it happened it never affected an election, and ... racist!

This Democrat, this woman, deprived five of her fellow citizens of their vote. By her illegal votes she disenfranchised five of her fellow citizens. But this doesn't bother the Virginian Pilot. No big deal. How can we guarantee that the "right " people win if we can stuff the ballot box or have my dead grandmother vote?